Primary Sources

There are two main primary sources for the Almans, these are:

• Orchesography, by Thoinot Arbeau, which lists the music and tabulature for one Alman.

• The Inns of Court manuscripts. These are transcribed in an article Dancing in the Inns of Court, in Historical Dance, The Journal of the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society, Vol 2 No 5 (1986-87).

Reconstructions

There is also a book by Patri Pugliese, titled “Practice for Dauncynge” which contains transcriptions and reconstructions of most of the almans in the latter source, however it is out of print. More recently, there is also a book and CD titled “Dances from the Inns of Court” containing many of these dances, by Peter and Janelle Durham, which contains concordances from the various manuscripts.

It’s worth getting hold of a copy of these sources, as they are not expensive and list a good number of dances that are not contained in this book. Allemandes are fairly easy to re-construct from the primary sources as Arbeau is available in translation, and the Inns of Court MSS are in English.